LHS Hearthstone Tournament Picking Guide

Introduction

Hey everyone, today I am here to talk a about picking your decks in Hearthstone tournament!

A lot of people seems to enjoy playing LHS (Last Hero Standing) tournament types, these tournaments types are the ones played in famous tournaments such as ZOTAC and IhearthU’s King of the Hill.

So, how does it work? Each player must pick one of his decks to start a best-of-3 or best-of-5 series. Once the first round is over, the player that lost the game must choose another class to play. It’s a different strategy than traditional a “sideboard” found in other games like Magic: the Gathering.

Why Is A Guide Nedded?

Firstly, Hearthstone is a competitive card game and all competitive games have a meta game. In Hearthstone, the meta game is the conjunction of decks that players like to use in order to play the game.There are good decks and bad decks, sometimes the best deck is not the most played because of its price or difficulty.

In a meta game, there are decks that counter other decks and decks that have even chances against other decks. We like to distribute these decks into tiers. So the tier 1 decks are the best decks to be played in each meta game(but that does not mean it doesn’t have counters), tier 2 are usually the mid-level decks and the counters to some of the tier 1 decks, and in the tier 3 is where we put the weak decks. A metagame is considered “healthy” whenever there are a big variety of classes in the highest tiers.

That being said, we need to know which picks are the bests, analyze the meta so we have a better shot at winning tournaments, and sometimes we do wrong choices when choosing a deck. And that is why I am here, to help you guys making the right choices!

The picks!!

My recommendation is to always start a tournament with a deck that has a solid fair chance against most decks. I usually like to start with Midrange, because midrange decks usually do well against aggressive decks while holding its ground against late game control decks.

My suggestion of picks for this weekend are:

Best: Midrange Druid, Shaman, Handlock and Miracle Rogue.

Mid: Warlock Zoo, Aggro Hunter, Paladin Midrange*, Warrior Control.

Worst: Control Mage, other “super aggro” decks*, Ramp druid*, etc.

* I consider Paladin Midrange the new “healadin” control version that has been showing up in the ladder lately – it focuses on board clear and self-healing. Super aggros I consider all tempo-oriented decks focused on winning the game faster than the opponent can respond, such as Shockadin, Tempo Rogue, Aggro Mage, and Weapon Warrio Aggro. These decks are also known as “face rush”. I also consider “Ramp Druid” as the late-game taunt-heavy oriented old school build, rather than the new “charge” versions that uses Wild Growth, which I call “Midrange Druid”.

Now lets sort out the ideas, the best picks are the decks that do well versus almost everything else on the meta game, being either even or good. These are the decks you should choose first if you wish to have a higher chance at winning tournaments.

In the mid picks I put specific counters to more than one of the best choices(in this case, aggro hunter for Handlock and Miracle, and Midrange Paladin for Druid and Shaman), and decks that have even chances against most of the decks in the meta game(control warrior and warlock zoo).

In the worst picks I put direct counters to specific decks, control mage countering control decks, other “super aggro” decks countering miracle rogue, Ramp druid countering Zoolock. I consider these decks to be bad picks because they can be countered by a variety of decks while only countering a few of these decks. I usually like to point out these as the best options for a round 3 pick.

The Counter Pick!

Well, now we move on to the counter pick section of this guide. There are different situations that should be taken into consideration before picking a deck:

Does this deck hard-counter or soft-counter my opponents’ current deck?

Is this a best-of-3 or best-of-5?

Will there be a game after this one?

If there will be a game after this one, in what position will I be when my opponent counter picks this deck after this round?

I will try to cover all these situations. Instead of posting each idea 1 by 1, I decided to make a small graph, and will try to cover all picks by stating the following:

The Round 2 (Best of 3)/Round 2, 3 or 4(Best of 5), is the “Not the last round” part, which includes soft counters, and tier 1-2 hard counters. The Last Rounds include only hard counters, and in case there aren’t, viable options. The reason I chose these is because the chances of getting hard countered goes lower the higher tier the deck is.

Here are my counter pick suggestions (note: the meta game shifts and this list is subject to change!):

Note: The bold pick options are the best picks, the ones with no bold picks means all picks are even.

Now, to answer the questions asked in the beginning of this section:

Usually in the beginning of best-of-5 games, you don’t want to use a direct counter to a certain deck just to soft counter another deck. That is less likely to happen in best-of-3 because there are fewer games being played.

Try to always go for your best option on a best-of-3, but sometimes its good to save the best options for the last rounds on best-of 5s!

This is a very important question, because sometimes a direct counter to a deck gets easily countered by other decks, so its best to select weak direct counters only on the last game of the series!

Always try to keep in mind which decks the opponent already played. If he/she already played a deck that counters the deck you are willing to use, odds are he/she will not be able to use that deck again in this same round!

Conclusion

I hope this guide helps you choosing which decks to use in LHS tournaments, as well as which ones to pick in many of the different cases.

If you have any other questions about picks, as well as questions about any deck I did not include in the list, feel free to ask me in the comments and I will try to respond it as soon as possible! Hope you guys enjoyed the article!